Tuesday, March 20, 2012

The Einstein Girl moves screenward


Today I went up to Holland Park to meet Emily Hickman of The Agency, who has been ably representing me on various screen-related matters over the past year. In her newly refurbished office I signed an option agreement on the screen rights to The Einstein Girl (aka Das Einstein-Mädchen), the counterparty being the German actor Sebastian Koch, who is in the process of setting up a new film production company in Berlin
Right now Sebastian is probably Germany’s most bankable star, and certainly one of its most highly regarded. Until recently he was best known outside his native country for his role as the playwright Georg Dreyman in The Lives of Others (see above), which won the Oscar for best foreign language film in 2006. He has since added leads in many English language productions, most recently Unknown (2011) opposite Liam Neeson and Albatross (2011) opposite Jessica Brown Findlay. Over the past few months, as well as popping over to Greece to star in God Loves Caviar with Catherine Deneuve and John Cleese, he has been shooting the lead role in Suspension of Disbelief (see below),a new thriller being directed by the Oscar-winning director Mike Figgis, of Leaving Las Vegas fame. As soon as that's done, he'll be playing the villain opposite Bruce Willis in the latest installment of the Die Hard franchise.
During the course of last year I had the pleasure of meeting with Sebastian twice in Berlin (once at the famous Einstein café in Charlottenburg, which is well worth a visit). They were very enjoyable meetings, and the possibility exists that we will collaborate on the script development for The Einstein Girl. Sebastian is a bit of an Anglophile, and a great lover of Shakespeare, lending his weight to several Shakespearian ventures in Germany. Whether The Einstein Girl ends up heading in an English or German language direction, though, has not yet been determined. I guess, in the end, like so many things, that’s a decision that will be determined by finance.
In any case, I’m really delighted that The Einstein Girl’s filmic destiny has ended up in such talented and charismatic hands, and I’m unusually confident that something special will eventually emerge.


1 comment:

parisgirl said...

this is fabulous and exciting, philip! bravo. Mr. Koch played uther pendragon in the tv series 'camelot', and i loved him! smouldering comes to mind...
the einstein girl is next up on my reading list.